The pickings have been kind of slim at Know Theatre over the
past year. The quality has been high (the staging of When the Rain Stops Falling was one of the best shows onstage
locally during 2013, and Mike Bartlett’s Cockoffered a showcase of strong acting), but the works have felt few and far
between. So today’s announcement from Producing Artistic Director Eric Vosmeier
of a full schedule that’s already under way and extends beyond the typical end
of the 2013-2014 season is welcome news. Here’s what’s in store following
Lauren Gunderson’s Macbeth-inspired
comedy Toil and Trouble (presently
onstage through Aug. 24):

Bull by Mike Bartlett (Nov. 1-30): Yes, it’s another piece by
the playwright of Cock, making Know
the first U.S. theater to produce both pieces by the British writer. Both use a
stripped-down aesthetic — no props and no scenery make for a lot of onstage
intensity regarding characters and their relationships. This one is the story
of three mid-level executives who compete for two corporate positions. Brian
Robertson, who also staged Cock,
returns to direct this one, and George Alexander, one of the four actors in the
earlier show, will perform in this one, too.

The Naughty List (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings, Dec.
1-30): OTRImprov, an improvisational comedy troupe that’s part of Know’s
Jackson Street Market, will hold forth in the courtyard at Arnold’s Bar &
Grill in downtown Cincinnati for the holidays. Combining long- and short-form
improv, the performers will offer a very irreverent take on the holidays — with
the help of audience suggestions and participation.

Pluto (Jan. 24-Feb. 22, 2014): Know’s former artistic director
Jason Bruffy comes back to town to stage a poignant and evocative new script by
Steve Yockey. The production is part of a rolling world premiere through the
National New Play Network, and it will feature two excellent local
professionals, Annie Fitzpatrick and Tori Wiggins. An ordinary day in a
suburban home takes a strange turn following a local tragedy, what with all
hell breaking loose. Know’s publicity says the show “explores tragedy, loss and
the way love can blind us to the truth.”

TBD (April 4-May
10, 2014): Know is holding a slot for a production to be announced later. You
can be sure it will be another script with the ink still drying.

Cincinnati Fringe Festival (May 27-June 7, 2014): The 11th
annual Fringe will be back with 12 days of theater, music, dance, film, art —
and a lot of stuff in between that kind of defies simple description.
Applications for performers will be accepted starting Sept. 1, 2013 (through
Dec. 6). Info: www.cincyfringe.com.

Moby Dick (Fall 2014): Playwright Julian Rad adapted Herman
Melville’s great American novel for an Off-Off-Broadway production in 2003.
Michael Burnham, recently retired from a long career as a professor of drama at
UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, will co-direct the show with designer
Andrew Hungerford. The tale of revenge and obsession with Captain Ahab pursuing
the great white whale that maimed him has been stripped to its essence for what
promises to be a highly theatrical endeavor that uses sea chanteys and creative
staging.

In addition to these full-scale productions, Know has
announced several Fringe “encores,” the return of shows that were hits during
the festival’s 10th iteration back in June. Jon Kovach will repeat his powerful
one-man show based on Ron Jones’ The Wave (Aug. 26-27);
comedian/storyteller/singer Kevin Thornton will present Stairway to Kevin (Sept.
6 and 13); and Paul Strickland’s one-man trailer park fairytale comedy, Ain’t
True and Uncle False (Oct. 11-12).

Tickets for the full-productions are $15 in advance, and $20
the week of the performance; Fringe “encore” tickets are $12. Know offers sets
of six-show flex passes for $90 that do not expire. They can be exchanged for
tickets for any of these productions. For more information: 513-300-5669 or
www.knowtheatre.com.

Halloween seems on its way to being celebrated as a classic holiday, so perhaps it's appropriate that Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has not one but two productions that specifically the give-me-goosebumps crowd.

What would musical theater be like without the contributions of Stephen Sondheim? Not much. Over the past 50-plus years (his first Broadway show was West Side Story in 1957), Sondheim has contributed lyrics and music — often both — to nearly 20 musicals. Which one is the greatest? There might be room for argument here (there are so many to choose from), but most Sondheim fans put Sweeney Todd at the top of their list.

Sondheim created the tale of the “Demon Barber of Fleet Street” with the notion that he wanted it to scare people, and it’s done just that for three decades. It’s a great show in the run-up to Halloween — what with Sweeney’s collaboration with Mrs. Lovett to turn his victims into meat pies — and that’s surely what Footlighters, Inc., had in mind when they scheduled it. (It opens tonight and continues through Oct. 24.)

When you see a show like Emma, the Jane Austen musical recently presented at the Cincinnati Playhouse (pictured), do you ever wonder where it came from? If you paid attention to some of the Playhouse’s publicity, you might know it premiered at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, Calif., where it was a big box-office hit. In fact, the theater’s artistic director Robert Kelley, who staged the original, and several cast members from the original production came together again in Cincinnati for the Playhouse production.

Aronoff to host Green Day-inspired Punk Rock opera in spring 2014

Two weeks ago I caught a touring performance of American Idiot: The Musical when it made a three-evening stop at Dayton's Victoria Theatre (see review here).
The performance of Green Day's album transformed into a musical theater
piece was a noisy blast of defiance, full of energy – although a downer
of a story about three guys being overwhelmed by everyday life. But
that's what you's probably expect of a "Punk Rock Opera." We'll have it
for two nights in Cincinnati, Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12,
2014 (that's right, a year from now) as part of the Broadway
Across America series at the Aronoff (about twice the size of the
Victoria). If you're a fan of Green Day, you'll want to see this one.
And if you like shows such as next to normal, a recent big
hit for Ensemble Theatre, it's worth noting that Green Day's songs were
orchestrated for the stage show by Tom Kitt, who composed N2N's story of a bipolar mom struggling to keep her family together.

A lot of Stephen
Sondheim’s shows are kind of heady, but Into the Woods
— a bunch of fairytales put through a blender — is perhaps his
most approachable. Given the delightful treatment, overflowing with
talent you’ll find in this production at UC’s
College-Conservatory of Music, tickets might be in short supply but
try — it’s a longer run than usual. Act I is about “happily
every after,” while Act II explores what comes next. CCM has a
remarkably skilled crop of seniors this year (they’ll be on
Broadway before long), and professor and director Aubrey Berg, who
heads the program in musical theater, has used them to full advantage
in a wildly clever staging. There are many featured performances and
songs — the characters include Cinderella and her evil stepsisters,
Jack (from the beanstalk story) with a very funny pet cow, a handsome
but empty-headed prince, a precocious Little Red Riding Hood and a
lascivious Wolf — but this is way more than a tale for kids. In
fact, Into the Woods is one of the best theater productions
I’ve seen all season. Read my review(a Critic’s Pick), and then go to see it. Tickets: 513-556-4183.

A year ago Cincinnati
Shakespeare had a big hit with Jane Austen’s Pride &
Prejudice. They’ve done it again with another adaptation, Sense
& Sensibility. This time it’s two sisters, one rational
and one emotional, wonderfully portrayed by Kelly Mengelkoch (as the
reserved, reasonable Elinor) and Sara Clark (as willful, romantic
Marianne). They’re surrounded by droll supporting characters —
and a story of romance and domestic intrigue. I gave the production a
Critic’s Pick. It’s onstage for two more weeks, but many performances have sold
out, so don’t dally. Tickets: 513-381-2273.

This is the final
weekend for two more excellent productions. Know Theatre’s “comedy
of anxiety” by Allison Moore, Collapse, about all
kinds of things falling down — a highway bridge, the economy,
relationships — winds up on Saturday evening. Andrew Bovell’s
Speaking in Tongues, a complicated noir-ish tale of
marital deceit and cryptic crime, finishes its run at Cincinnati
Playhouse’s Shelterhouse Theater on Sunday. Both earned Critic’s
Picks.

In addition to Into
the Woods, there are more shows by Sondheim on local stages. You’ll
find the touring production of West Side Story at the Aronoff
through March 11. It’s a show Sondheim wrote the lyrics for when he
was 26 (he’ll soon be 82). Tickets: 800-982-2787. ... This weekend
the Cincinnati Playhouse begins previews of Merrily We Roll Along,
a Sondheim show from 1981 that was a flop at first, but now is
praised as one of his greatest musical accomplishments. Tony Award
winner John Doyle is directing; he makes things interesting by having
his actors play musical instruments, too. (He did that at the
Playhouse in 2007 with Sondheim’s Company, a production that
transferred to Broadway.) Merrily opens next Thursday on the
Marx Stage, but previews are the most affordable tickets, so think
about catching it this weekend. Through March 31. Tickets:
513-421-3888.

Each week in Stage
Door, Rick Pender offers theater tips for the weekend, often with a few pieces
of theater news.

Know Theatre of Cincinnati has called Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine home for several years, but it's been easy to miss them, tucked away behind the Gateway Garage on a short block between Central Parkway and 12th Street. That's being remedied right now with the construction of a marquee that should be highly visible from both north and south of the theater, especially from busy Central Parkway.

I hope my Curtain Call column (foundhere) in a recent issue moves you to head to UC's College Conservatory of Music for Richard Hess's staging of Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Heidi Chronicles, onstage throughSunday. If you remember the 1970s and ’80s, this production will transport you back in time as you watch young feminist Heidi Holland grow up, grow weary and grow wise. Tickets: 513-556-4183.

A dog might be man's best friend, but sometimes that's not quite enough. That's one of the lessons of Christian O'Reilly's

Chapatti, which opened last night at the Cincinnati Playhouse. Set in contemporary Ireland, it's about two lonely hearts, both in their 60s, who love animals — he's a dog guy ("Chapatti" is his dog's name) and she's a cat lady (she has 19 of them). That brings them together, but what they need is human companionship. That might sound predictable, but there's more to it than that. (Through March 8.) Tickets: 513-421-3888.

Falcon Theatre in Newport is opening its stage adaptation of In the Heat of the Night this evening for a two-weekend run. It's the story of a black homicide detective from L.A. who gets caught up in an Alabama homicide investigation in the early 1960s. It's a powerful drama that reminds us of how messy race relations were a half-century ago. With Ed Cohen as director and Derek Snow as Virgil Tibbs, this is likely to be a solid production. Tickets: 513-479-6783.

Get a kid started on going to theater: Take her or him to see School House Rock Live! JR., presented by the Children's Theatre of Cincinnati this weekend at the Taft. It's an adaptation of the educational cartoon from the '70s and '80s. And grown-ups are likely to have fun, too, since the local rock band The Rusty Griswolds is performing tunes like "Conjunction Junction" and "Three Is a Magic Number." Public performances tonight (7:30 p.m.), Saturday (2 and 5 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.)Tickets: 800-745-3000.

Three well-received productions have their final performances this weekend on Sunday: Ensemble Theatre's riveting mystery/psychological drama, The Other Place (CityBeat review here), with a fine cast led by Regina Pugh; the Cincinnati Playhouse's assemblage of Johnny Cash numbers, Ring of Fire (CityBeat interview here), featuring four singers and six excellent supporting musicians; and the funny two-man, 20+ character show Greater Tuna at the Covedale Center (CityBeat review here). And The Handmaid's Tale at Know Theatre, a one-woman adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, has just one more week in its run.

The energizer bunnies at Know keep things going with Serials 2: Thunderdome on Monday evening, 15-minute episodes of five new scripts. The concept had a big following over the summer, and one of those works has its parts reassembled as a "full-length" piece: Saturday the 14th, a dark romantic comedy. Playing two lonely losers who meet as they mutually contemplate suicide are Miranda McGee from Cincinnati Shakespeare and Nic Pajic.Tickets: 513-300-5669.

The Broadway Series offers a quick stop (they call it a "season extra") of the musical Anything Goes next week, openingTuesday and running through Sunday. If you can't get away for a mid-February cruise, this Cole Porter classic on an ocean liner might be just the ticket for an evening's escape. Tickets: 513-621-2786.

Onstage at Dayton's Nutter Center through June 16

Cirque du Soleil's classic show, Quidam,
opens with Zoé (Alessandra Gonzalez), a bored little girl whose parents
ignore her. We enter the world of her imagination when Quidam, a
headless wanderer under an umbrella, hands Zoé his blue bowler hat.
(This imagery will resonate with those who know the surrealist paintings
of René Magritte, a 20th century artist whose paintings challenged
traditional perceptions of reality.) Zoé's self-absorbed parents float
away and we are transported to the magical reality of Cirque's
physically astonishing performers.

The "world" presently inhabited by Quidam is Dayton's Nutter Center, on the campus of Wright State University, through Sunday, June 16.
The show, which originated as a big top production (it spent several
weeks in Cincinnati in August and September 2006 in a "grand chapiteau"
on the Ohio River bank near the Suspension Bridge) is now an arena show,
and it works beautifully in the Nutter. Five giant metal arches are
used to suspend performers in mid-air, but you quickly lose sight of the
mechanics thanks to the artistry, visual and musical, of Cirque.

To me, the
greatest wonder — beyond the physical precision and discipline of
Cirque's athletic artists — is the universality of shows like Quidam,
which tour the world. (In a few months, this company will be
performing in Europe, playing to audiences in cities including Vienna,
Munich and London, where it has a month-long engagement at Royal Albert
Hall.) The performers are ethnically diverse and the storytelling spans
cultural boundaries: Wordless clowning (Quidam features a segment
about making a silent movie that recruits a few audience members as
"actors") is laugh-out-loud funny, and the ringmaster John (Mark Ward)
borders on intentional incompetence in a way that endears him to the
crowd even as he moves us from act to act without saying a word.

And what
acts we see: German Wheel (a pair of man-sized double hoops containing a
guy who rolls around the stage); Diabolo (spinning Chinese yo-yo's
tossed high into the air from a string and caught); Aerial Contortion
(Tanya Burka is an amazing silk contortionist, many feet above the
stage); Skipping Ropes (using 20 acrobats); Aerial Hoops (three women
spinning and pivoting through the air); Hand Balancing (incredible
strength and flexibility by a woman on yard-high canes); Spanish Webs
(five fellows on high, hanging and twisting on ropes); Statue (a
mesmerizing performance by Yves Décoste and Valentyna Sidenko who slowly
and powerfully balance in various positions); and finally Banquine
(acrobatics). The latter section, Quidam's finale, uses 15
artists, launching tumblers high into the air and catching them. At one
point they build a tower of four humans atop each others' shoulders.
Each assemblage or toss seems more daring than the previous.

Quidam
might be the product of Zoé's boredom, but the show expands imaginative
horizons. It's definitely worth a one-hour drive from Cincinnati.